The History of the Shinobi Families: The Revelations of Tetsuo - 14 November 2014
The History of the Shinobi Families: The Revelations of Tetsuo - 11/14/2014 Tetsuo had just turned 14 on the fourthteenth day of the eleventh month in the year 201 AN and yet the day seemed to be a normal day as he had spent weeks looking up the history of his clan, as well as others, and their connections through the years during the century long era of peace. He had been curious of the last war as well since it not only costed the life of his father but also the village of the Konohagakure which was the only real home of the Hyuga clan for so many generations. Throughout those long weeks of intensive research and reading Tetsuo gathered up as much as he could find in books along with antique journals, diaries and scrolls preserved by the clan which contain written accounts from past clan members that had lived before the war and the generations before that so to get a clear perspective of the clan through their eyes rather than only relying on history texts and biographies of the famous shinobi and kunoichi of the eras. The idea was that Tetsuo was starting to have questions emerge into his young mind, some of which that involved how Konoha was destroyed and who was responsible for it. The journey into the past began with following the traces of the historical texts of the Hyuga clan's ancestor: Hamura Otsutsuki , the younger brother of Hagoromo Otsutsuki and one of the first humans to be born with chakra. The traces went back to his mother, Princess Kaguya Otsutsuki, who was the matriarch of the Otsutsuki clan before the foundations of the hidden villages many millenia ago. Because of her longing for peace during an era of endless wars among humankind she had defied the taboo of eating from the Shinju which was the tree carrying fruit that could give the consumer the ability to produce powerful chakra. She ate of the fruit and with having chakra within her she was able to single-handedly end all the conflicts upon the continent and thus becamed worshipped as the Rabbit Goddess for her deed. However the selfless act had a cost because the power made her despotic, her mind clouded and thus began to control humankind by force by which her image as a benevolent goddess became to that of a demon. On the brink of insanity, she incarnated with the Shinju to create a combined entity through the Ten-Tails upon deciding that the chakra of her twin sons belonged to her as they inherited her powerful chakra and her unique dojutsu: Hagoromo with the Rinnegan and Hamura with the Byakugan. It was through this transformation that the Ten-Tails had began to ravage the land for that chakra, having many believe that the Shinju was attempting to regain its lost chakra in the shape of a monster. The Otsusuki brothers had defeated the Ten-Tails in their final duel against it, having it reside within Hagoromo's body through sealing with fuinjutsu which made him the first jinchuriki to carry a tailed beast and revered as a god for the virtue of his victory. Kaguya was also sealed away due to her power hungry nature and Hagoromo had researched her technique of the Rinne Sharingan , the progenitor of the Rinnegan and the Sharingan. This allowed Hagoromo to free the world from Kaguya's Infinite Tsukuyomi and he later travelled the land with his knowledge of chakra and shared chakra to everyone as well as the ideals and religion, ninshu , the precursor to modern ninjutsu. These great deeds as well as as the ultimate desire of peace established across the war-torn land made Hagoromo the Savior of the World as well as the Sage of the Six Paths and the God of Shinobi, but this wish could never be fully realized in a full lifetime so he had entrusted his sons, Indra and Asura, his dreams and legacy to them and taught them the ways and philosophies of ninshu. Indra demonstrated great talent towards ninshu and anything he applied his mind to since at a young age, being deemed as a true prodigy by Hagoromo. Because of his prowess, he however led a solitary life as he found no need to depend on others. Asura lived in his genius brother's shadow in every conceivable way since childhood, having displayed no natural talent himself. Because of this, Asura came to realize the value of others through cooperation and the power of making and depending upon friends and allies before eventually awakening his own power which equaled that of Indra's own, pushing on through his limitations and growing stronger and more mature because of his struggles and having made many friends along the way. It was here that Hagoromo acknowledged Asura's chosen path, agreeing that love and cooperation were the true keys to peace, and was ultimately inspired by Asura to separate the Ten-Tails through the Creation of All Things technique and created the nine tailed beasts as a result of it. Each were named by Hagoromo: Shukaku the One-Tail tanuki, Matatabi the Two-Tailed bakeneko, Isobu the Three-Tailed turtle, Son Goku the Four-Tailed monkey, Kokuo the Five-Tailed dolphin-headed horse, Saiken the Six-Tailed slug, Chomei the Seven-Tailed kabutomushi, Gyuki the Eight-Tailed ushi-oni, and Kurama the Nine-Tailed kitsune. Hagoromo was incapacitated for several months after the tailed beasts were formed but the husk of the Ten-Tails that remained sealed within him kept Hagoromo alive, and some time after their creation he instructed the young tailed beasts were told that they were all still linked to one another despite being separate entities and that they eventually one day become one again, yet not as they originally were, and that one shall appear at that time to show them true power. To ensure that the Ten-Tails should never resurface after his death, Hagoromo eventually used Chibaku Tensei to seal the monster's husk, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, in what became the moon and Hamura with the rest of his clan departed to the moon in order to guard the sealed remains, leaving Hagoromo to spread his teachings until he had died. Despite their close relation to one another, there was a significant amount of friction between the tailed beasts that caused them to part ways. One such cause was due to Kurama's belief that their strength was determined by the number of their tails. On his deathbed, he chose Asura to be his successor to carry on his dream of establishing peace throughout the world but Indra, angry and jealous that his father had not chosen him, was overcome by bitterness and envy as well as being encouraged and manipulated by Black Zetsu, a product of Kaguya's will before she was sealed as the Ten-Tails. Indra fought against Asura to try and claim what he felt should have been his birthright, beginning a war between them that would continue through their descendants: Indra's being the Uchiha clan and Asura's being the Senju clan. Suspecting that Indra or one of his reincarnations could eventually attempt to take Asura's power for themselves, Hagoromo left behind a tablet called the Naka Shrine, detailing his history in an attempt to make them reconsider. Only those who possess the Rinnegan can fully decipher the contents of the tablet while a reader with other dojutsu such as the Sharingan can still partially interpret the information. However, unknown to him, Black Zetsu had altered the contents of his tablet so he could manipulate Indra's descendants, the Uchiha clan, through the ages into resurrecting Kaguya and initiating the Infinite Tsukuyomi anew by the belief of salvation among other things. Tetsuo was taken by surprise upon this newfound knowledge he had absorbed as he dove further, noting at how many of the families were actually linked in so many ways and that there were those that had attempted to make peace little by little through the different ages. He continued to read on with everything he could find at the home as well as the book shops he could find, his notes piling up in many stacks of pads containing endless amounts of scribblings that detail the history. It was clear that with the more knowledge of the past he gathered, the more he realized that the world had a very rich history of both conflict and attempts at peace but he was not yet finished as he then continued with his personal studies as each afternoon drove on with more notepads stacking up around his bedroom like an archive. The curiousity grew as the books and scrolls Tetsuo read sucked him into the past and helped him piece together the fragments that each document, his left hand holding scroll ends and turning book pages while his right hand scribbled the notes which began with simple outlines that branch off forming bubbles and lists accompanied by final paragraphs. The next step was to follow into the formation of Konohagakure through what was known as the Warring States Period which was an extremely lengthy and bloody period in history where hundreds of individual shinobi clans fought in constant, bitter warfare with ninja were organized into mercenaries that knew nothing but battle. More often than not, these clans were extremely isolated and only looked out for the well-being of their own members, and as such battled other clans constantly to not only survive but to cement their martial standing in society. Due to the unrelenting violence, the average life-span for a shinobi as well as a civilian’s own was a mere 30 years, though the single biggest reason for the continuing fall in life expectancy was the slaughter of countless conscripted children. With the continued loss of their kin, a never ending cycle of death and revenge was born which saw shinobi having to even conceal their surnames for fear of retaliation. Two such clans were the Senju clan and the Uchiha clan, who have warred against each other since the time of their ancestors and are revered by others as the strongest ninja clans. It was during this time period that Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju met and eventually befriended each other. Hashirama was born as the oldest of four children to Butsuma, leader of the Senju clan, his brothers being Kawarama, Tobirama and Itama. Madara was born the eldest of Tajima's five sons, three of which died young leaving the younger brother Izuna but both brothers became very close through their shared loss and constantly competed with each other to get stronger which this combined with Madara's naturally strong chakra enabled the young Madara to defeat adult Senju in battle and develop a reputation as a genius. Hashirama first came across Madara Uchiha at the edge of a river where the young Uchiha was attempting to skip a stone all the way across. Easily getting a rock to the other side, Hashirama introduced himself to Madara as his rival in stone skipping, and noted that he was clearly leading. Neither Hashirama nor Madara revealed their surnames as it was unwise in such an era. Unbeknown to them, their clans had been in a bloody feud for ages, hired constantly by opposing factions to counterbalance the other. The two knew that the only way for them to survive was to befriend their enemies. Over the years, both Hashirama and Madara became respected leaders in their clans and despite their friendships that they had molded in their childhoods they fought hard in battle against one another. The deaths of Hashirama's brothers had him and his remaining brother Tobirama implement a system where children dying would end but this idea was an alliance between the Senju and Uchiha clans. On top of that, Madara and Izuna awakened their Sharingan thus hereby becoming the first Uchiha to have them. Butsuma however became suspicious of Hashirama's wanderings in the forest and had Tobirama watch him in secret after attempting to pressure Hashirama to lead Madara into an ambush, resulting in the clan fathers along with Tobirama and Izuma to clash against each other, the latter receiving a fatal wound at the hands of Tobirama. This resulted in a battle between Hashirama and Madara by where Madara was defeated but Hashirama could not go through with killing his friend and offered peace. Even though considering this, Madara refused and retreated with the dying Izuma who claimed Hashirama's pleas for a truce as lies. This lead to Madara receiving the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan after Izuma gave Madara his eyes at the last moments of life. Decades of conflict made the clans increasingly weary. The death of Izuma resulted in increased surrenders of the Uchiha and even defections from the clan into the Senju. With grief and desperation, Madara made one more attack on Hashirama which resulted in another defeat despite his newfound power. He alone continued to argue against the truce from the Senju while many of the Uchiha seemed to agree with the prospect of peace. However, he then was persuaded to a permanent alliance with Hashirama who nearly committed suicide as compensation for Izuma's death and helped form Konohakagure with the Land of Fire, hereby causing more villages fo form and creating the Five Great Shinobi Countries with smaller settlements outlining them. At this time, Tetsuo was already diving deep into the history of Konohagakure and knew well about the efforts of Naruto Uzumaki, but then there was the question of how the war destroyed the village in the first place in the last shinobi conflict known only as the Great War which in turn destroyed many villages in the process. He had to understand what was the real cause of that war and why so many were slaughtered in the process. Through this knowledge, he felt he could stop it from ever happening again and rebuild the fallen villages across the continent and figure out his true purpose as a Hyuga clan member aside from being among the branch family's ranks. The only question remained was this: How much is there left to learn? Results Tetsuo had conducted extensive research on the history of shinobi existence, but may now attempt to find more information relating to the last war. Possible answers may be uncovered from Ame's leadership.